Alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction, phenomena which can be collectively referred to by the term alcoholism, represent a serious problem for the whole of modern society (Gessa G. L., Bisogno compulsivo di bere e "principio del piacere" The compulsive need to drink and the pleasure principle! in Medicina delle tossicodipendenze Drug Addiction Medicine! II, 5 (1994)). In Italy, for example, more than 9% of the population (about 5 million people) are heavy drinkers and more than 1 million people are alcohol-addict (Calamo-Specchia F. P.--Epidemiologia dell'alcolismo in Italia Epidemiology of alcoholism in Italy! in Atti del VII Congresso Nazionale della S.I.A., Records of the 7th National Congress of the S.I.A.! Mediserve, Rome, 295-301, (1991)). These figures become much higher if we consider countries such as the United States of America where there are more than 13 million alcohol-addicts. Alcohol abuse and actual alcohol addiction result in an enormous outlay of public money (recently, since 1991, in the United States about 200 thousand million dollars a year have been spent) and are the cause of enormous social and psychological damage for the individuals involved.
The existing approaches for the treatment of alcoholism, in addition to those of a psychological nature (group therapy, etc.), consist in the use of drugs such as disulfiram and calcium carbamide which act on the metabolism of alcohol, inhibiting hepatic aldehyde-dehydrogenase and therefore raising the hematic levels of acetaldehyde, with all the undesiderable phenomena which occur each time ethanol is taken.
According to the present state of the art, the sole plant whose derivatives have been used for the treatment of alcoholism is the Pueraria lobata (Radix puerarie), which is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine and forms the subject of Patent Application WO 93/00896.